Live at the Marquee: Top dance artists lay down tracks

IT was marathon day in Cork city centre on Sunday, but out at the marquee’s new docklands location, revellers went a different distance.

From 4pm ‘til close, an all-day line-up brought leading lights in dance music together with emerging Irish acts in the broader genre, attracting a multi-generational bank holiday crowd in the process.

Topping an eclectic billing was Belfast-born production duo Bicep, who took the opportunity to road-test new audiovisual show ‘Chroma’, an immersive experience that also answers the question of how the critically-acclaimed duo might transition into the arenas for which they have long been destined. Half-curation, half-installation, ‘Chroma’ is a DJ set that takes in some of the duo’s own work, and juxtaposes it with tracks taken from the current techno panorama.

But the story here is the visuals, a love-letter to visual retrotech, from LCD lettering and glitching to early-3D rendering and vectors, which, while common themes in pop culture, find a more mainstream audience here, augmented by lighting, lasers and smoke.

It’s as immersive as a show gets in a large space like the marquee — custom-made for an electronic outfit themselves crossing over into the mainstream.

Similarly occupied with keeping beats big and bassey was London-born producer Peter O’Grady, aka Joy Orbison, whose turn at the decks set the tone for the headliners after an afternoon of more high-energy, upfront fare. Breaks and bass were the order of the day here, pulling from a sonic palate that veered from the percussive to the outright foreboding.

Also on the billing were Belfast’s Sally C, who kept the pace up while making the odd nod to vintage house in fine Corkonian tradition; Kerry producer Shee, who has recently been added to the soundtrack of gaming giants EA Sports’ most recent Formula 1 game, F124; and Cork duo Reflux.

Live at the Marquee continues this week with comedian John Bishop continuing his ‘Back at It’ tour tomorrow.